


The Hands

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, probably sad, relationships, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: The first thing she noticed were her hands, long fingered, slim and gracefull hands.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ao3Guest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ao3Guest/gifts).



The first thing she noticed were her hands: long, slim hands fisting on top of her thighs, tapping a rhythm against the bus window, twirling a pen, rubbing at her lower lip, disappearing into her hair. Even before she knew her name, Clarke’s sketchbook was full of those hands.

  
The next thing she noticed was her hair: twisted into tight knots and complicated braids tumbling all over itself like a deep dark chocolate cascade.

  
Her eyes were green. That deep vibrant green usually associated with poison.

 

Clarke had never been insecure or shy but those eyes made her feel oddly inadequate. There was something about this woman that commanded respect and expected you to scurry out of her way and do her bidding. Clarke might or might not have been obsessed with her long – oh, so very long – fingered hands, but she had never been prone to scurrying and wasn’t about to start now. So, whenever she raised her eyes from her sketchbook to find those poisonous eyes staring fixedly at her, Clarke just looked back with as much intensity.

  
Thus started the strange contest that only ended when the bus jolted to a stop and they had to run out of the vehicle or miss their stop altogether – something that – and Clarke was not proud to admit it - had happened more than once.

  
Had it been any other girl Clarke would have asked her out long before her subconscious started vividly imagining exactly how dexterous those skinny fingers could really be. But there was something about her that scared Clarke. She was not used to being scared or intimidated. In previous relationships, she had always been the one who intimidated, the one who decided and led her partners around. She had an inkling that with this strangely intense woman things would be wildly different. Clarke didn’t like different all that much.

  
The first time the woman spoke to her, Clarke couldn’t help but notice how dark her voice was, how strong and haughty. It was deeper than Clarke had expected. She spoke curly and precisely, biting the end of every word off like it had personally offended her.

  
"I am Lexa."

  
It felt like a victory and Clarke tried to reign her smirk in and but probably failed. Lexa scowled, her lips pressed in a straight white line and Clarke took pity on her.

  
"I’m Clarke."

  
She nodded, curt and brusque.

"You want coffee."

  
Clarke blinked.

  
It sounded like a command, more barked than asked and her first instinct was to tell her to shove it. But Lexa’s face was closed off and her eyes fixed unsure in an indefinite place over Clarke’s left cheekbone. She was utterly still something that didn’t seem at all usual for a woman whose hands were always in movement.

  
And she was already curious. Her sketchbook felt oddly heavy against her thighs, its pages full of those graceful hands. How would they look cupped around a cup of coffee? Would she take nimble bites of a cupcake or would she break little pieces off a muffin? Would she play with a spoon? Would she shred the small sugar packages, twisting the paper around her spider-leg fingers?

  
It was only coffee. Only for research purposes. Only to get more inspiration for her hand practices. Hands are difficult to draw.

  
"Sure."

  
They lapsed into silence.

 

Lexa’s poisonous eyes traveling pointedly everywhere but over Clarke, the corners of her mouth threatening to pull up into a smile Clarke really wanted to see – research purposes, you know. She was curious about that smile that never had made an appearance.

  
As a small kindness, Clarke offered a time and a place. If Lexa’s relieved sigh was anything to go by, it was the right call. That smile was a hair closer to the surface.

 

Clarke’s previous partners had been meek and accommodating until she grew bored and dumped them. It wasn’t like that with Lexa.

  
Lexa – much like Clarke – was used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it. She was used to people listening to her without questioning her. Being with her was a constant battle of wills that no one seemed to be able to understand. A tug-o-war with far too many concessions for Clarke’s taste, but of which she couldn’t bring herself to walk away. According to all of Clarke’s friends, their relationship was doomed to fail. Lexa didn’t have that many friends: like a cat, she had mostly minions and followers. Clarke met Lexa’s best friend/brother after the first few months of their relationship. He was dark, intense and angry-looking, hovering close to Lexa and quick to make her laugh.

  
"Bellamy likes you," Lexa told Clarke after he left and it felt like a sort of victory- He doesn’t like many people.

  
"Did you just test me with your best friend?"

  
Lexa’s brow furrowed slightly.  
"Of course."

  
"You do that with all your friends."

  
She answered like it was obvious.

  
"Of course."

Clarke’s friends kept asking what she saw in haughty holier-than-thou Lexa. Clarke thought about it, too. What was there? They fought endlessly about the little things, they had to find the middle ground on a lot of the not-so-little ones – capitulating and conceding every single step of the way. They agreed on most of the important ones.

  
It was exhausting. It was bright. It was hot. It was comforting. It was fun. And it continued to be fun. They didn’t accommodate with time like most of her other relationships had done. They continued to explore new things, pushing against each other’s limits in ways none of Clarke’s previous partners had. Being with Lexa never turned into a chore.

  
They moved in together in October.

 

Lexa continued being commanding and awkward with public displays of feelings of any sort. She was brusque and hard-edged in spirit and body. But the more Clarke knew her, the more she discovered, peeling off layer after protective layer until she thought she had reached the core, just to discover that there was yet another one.

  
Sometimes she thought she would never understand. Sometimes she thought she would end up tiring of the constant fights, the constant search for the truth behind all the suits of armor.

  
That moment didn’t seem to be arriving, though.

 

Clarke loved waking up next to Lexa, loved running her hands along the tanned lines of her body, burying herself into her strong arms, kissing her when she was loose and pliant. She loved coming back home to Lexa’s meditative heavy-metal, to the smell of her black coffee hanging in the air, loved drawing her when she was reading, lighting a candle, loved braiding her hair and undoing every complicated hairdo.

 

After three years, Clarke stopped fearing being bored with her. This was the longest relationship had ever had and, even though their day-to-day life was starting to slip into routine, there was still plenty of excitement to go around. And even that routine that Clarke had feared so much was a source of great happiness, it meant stability and Clarke liked stable things.

  
They were happy. They were happy. They were…

  
"What do you mean?" They were happy. "You want to end it?"

  
Weren’t they?

Clarke stared at Lexa, who was sitting at the dinner table, looking decidedly at the wall behind Clarke’s head.

  
She had just arrived home to find her just sitting there, staring at one of the thousand candles Lexa liked to keep around the house. It had taken Clarke way longer to comprehend what Lexa was saying that it should, but – for once – she was being patient.

  
"What is so difficult to comprehend about that sentence?"

  
Clarke swallowed the thick lump in her throat.

 

"Why?" Clarke hated how pleading and desperate her voice sounded while Lexa’s remained calm and collected.

  
For a moment Lexa didn’t say anything.

 

"You know the headaches I’ve been having?"

  
She blinked at the non-sequitur, Lexa continued speaking, sprawled on the dining-room chair like it was a throne and Clarke just some peasant.

 

She hadn’t been that condescending with Clarke since they started their relationship.

 

"I went to the doctor like you’ve been nagging me to do for the past few weeks."

 

Dread was cold, a very cold very ugly feeling in the pit of her stomach. "It wasn’t stress related."

  
There was no point in wallowing in denial, she just needed to think and find a solution.

  
"No," on her throne Lexa seemed so far away, already slipping through her fingers. There must be something she could do. Surely there must be a way to stop it, or…

 

"For the time being, I will just move to Bellamy’s. There is really no reason why we wouldn’t be able to do this in a civilized manner."

  
Clarke blinked back tears. This was so not happening.

 

"Why would you move? We can…"

  
"We are not going to do anything. This I will do on my own."

  
"You’re moving to Bellamy’s!"

  
"He is like my brother."

  
"And I am your….!"

  
She was a loss for words. Three years and they never even came close to the ‘l’ word. There had been no need. There had always been time. They knew what they felt for each other and that had been enough. Surely Lexa knew she wouldn’t just… Lexa knew how Clarke felt, right?

  
"Exactly."

  
How could she?

 

Bright hot anger clawed up her throat.

 

How could she accept it so calmly? How could she throw everything out the window? They could fight this together. They would overcome this together.

  
"Lexa… You don’t need to do this on your own."

  
"Yes. I do."

  
Someone knocked on the door.

 

"That would be my ride," she unfolded off the chair, rising like a commander or a queen. She wasn’t taller than Clarke, but something about her tried to make her feel like she was two feet tall.

  
Clarke opened and closed her mouth like a dumb fish.

 

"No!"

  
Lexa arched her thin eyebrow. Always composed, always commanding, expecting people to do as they were told. Clarke rebelled against that persona like she had always done. She had torn those walls down and would do so again.

  
"That’s it? You’ve planned this and this is how it has to be."

  
Lexa took a fully packed suitcase from beneath their bed and Clarke felt the stabbing pain of betrayal.

  
How long had she been planning this? How could she be so prepared to leave what they had behind?

 

"Yes."

 

"WHY?!"

  
Lexa took a long breath through her nose. Her eyes bleeding poison green.

  
"Because this is my life and nobody is going to tell me what to do with it," she sneered. "You should be grateful Bellamy forced me to tell you."

  
Clarke gaped at her for a beat.

 

"You were going to just vanish!?" she didn’t care that her voice came out shrill and high pitched. She was livid, betrayal and anger twisting painfully in her chest.

  
"I was going to tell you I would spend the weekend at Bellamy’s and then have him relay the news. He was very opinionated about that plan.

  
"Of fucking course he did! What sort of…"

  
"I can see now," she interrupted, "that it would have been cruel. And I am sorry. But the decision’s been made," there was the tiniest of pauses, Clarke knew her enough to recognize it as insecurity. "I don’t want you to watch this."

  
The knock on the door came again.

  
Lexa looked around the flat, her lips pressed into a very fine white line. Clarke wanted to tie her down, to sit on her until she could talk her out of leaving. Lexa’s poison-green eyes landed on her and her expression softened, as open and unguarded as she’d ever seen her – that was probably the scariest thing Clarke had ever seen in her life.

  
She stepped up and took Clark’s face in her hands.

 

"Don’t think of it as a goodbye, Clarke," she brushed her tears away with her long calloused fingers. "Think of it as the start of a new adventure."

  
She kissed softly her brow for a very long moment.

 

"I am glad I had this adventure with you," she breathed against her skin.

  
"Please don’t go."

  
Clarke hated how her voice hitched. How she was clinging to Lexa’s thin wrists, how she couldn’t stop crying and couldn’t think of a way to make her change her mind. She would grovel for the rest of her life if that made her stay.

  
"I have to. Our adventures await us."

  
She stepped away, picked her suitcase up. At the door, she looked back.

 

"Smile for me?"

  
And that was probably the first time Lexa ever asked for something in her life. Asked, truly, not only commanded or suggested. Clarke swallowed the knot in her throat and gave her a weak smile.

  
Lexa’s was the brightest Clarke had ever seen, all the hurt and the pain pushed back into the deepest depths of her eyes, buried so deep it was nearly invisible.

  
"Thank you," she said softly. "For everything."

  
Then she took a deep breath, straightened her spine, opened the door and vanished into the dark staircase.

**Author's Note:**

> As always this was unbetad.  
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting


End file.
